How You Can Attend The Deus Ex-Hosted Human Augmentation Conference

If you're interested in Deus Ex beyond the story, the lore and the Illuminati, there's going to be an actual real life conference talking about real life augmentation at The Paley Center for Media in New York City on August 3.

Game Informer is reporting that Square Enix, Eidos Montreal and CNN's new Courageous branch are teaming up together to host a conference talking about the advancements of human augmentation, and the breakthroughs in science that will affect augments over the course of the next decade. They will talk with Christians, scientists, medical professionals and those in the robotics field to talk about the bio-engineering aspects of augmentations, the ethical implications and the advancements that could make robotic prostheses more accessible to the wider public.

If you can't actually attend the event by showing up at the Paley Center for Media, you can attend via digital means thanks to a live-stream of the event that will take place through Twitch.tv.

While the article mentions that Konami is working with individuals to produce a prosthetic based on Venom Snake's missing arm in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Square Enix and Eidos are actually a lot further along with a real robotic prosthetic based on the technology present in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.

Eidos has teamed up with the robotic engineering company Open Bionics, in order to produce 3D printed, robotic prosthetics based on Adam Jensen's designs in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Open Bionics and Eidos have been showcasing the robotic prosthetic at various events with a test subject showing off the arm and its crude functionality.

According to the co-founder at Open Bionics, Samantha Payne, they will be producing and making the Deus Ex robotic prosthetic available sometime during the early half of 2017. During E3 Payne explained during a Square Enix segment that they would also be releasing the blueprints for the 3D printed version of Jensen's arm sometime before 2016 is out.

The bionic augmentations are mostly being used for replacement limbs at the moment, and are especially popular with those who served in the military and lost limbs during the heat of combat. While some of the more popularized bionic augmentations center around the mechanical elements and designs from Deus Ex, the reality is that there are also institutions working on robotic prosthetics that look and feel just like human tissue. Part of this is achieved using 3D printed organic stem cells.

The 3D printed organics are currently being tested across various research institutes in Melbourne, Australia, where they're attempting to artificially manufacture bionics that can actually feel and react to the sense of touch. It's been a painfully arduous process for the researchers, but they're almost at a point where they're nearing 1:1 sensations of touching and feeling through bio-mechanically engineered prostheses.

The more advanced bionic augmentations are still a long ways away from the consumer marketplace, but it's great to see that Square Enix will be pursuing a dialogue about the implications of bionics and their impending role on the mass marketplace in the near future.

You can learn more about the conference on human augmentation by visiting the official Human By Design website, or look to check out the live-stream of the event on August 3rd through the Deus Ex Twitch stream. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is due for release on the Xbox One, PS4 and PC on August 23.